The night was dark, sultry, and still. As ever and anon the fire caught some tall, dead tree, and running up it, seized the hollow trunk, holding out red signals from each limb and cavity, high up among the branches, the effect against the sombre sky, the dull, massed gloom of the mountain, was grandly effective. In the lurid scene the moving figures upon whose faces the fierce light occasionally beat, seemed weird and phantasmal. Patiently did the wary leader watch the line of fire, which had been extinguished on the side next to the lower lands, now casting back a half-burned log far within the blackened area, and anon beating out insidious tussocks of dried grass, ignited by a smouldering ember.
When once the defensive line had been subdued, it was easily kept under by sweeping the half-burned grass and sticks back from the still inflammable herbage into the bared space now devoid of fuel. But care was still needed, as ever and again a half-burned tree would crash down across the line, throwing forth sparks and embers, or perhaps lighting up a temporary conflagration.
All the night through, the men kept watch and ward beside the boundary. The strangeness of the scene compensated Wilfred and Guy for the loss of their natural rest as well as for the severity of the exertion. As they watched the flame-path hewing its way unchecked up the rugged mountain-side, lighting up from time to time with wondrous clearness every crag, bush, and tree, to the smallest twig—a nature picture, clear, brilliant, unearthly, framed in the unutterable blackness of the night, it seemed as if they were assisting at some Walpurgis revel; as if in the lone woods, at that mystic hour, the forms of the dead, the spectres of the past, might at any moment arise and mingle with them.
As they lay stretched on the dry sward, in the intervals of rest, they watched the gradual progress of the flame through the rugged, chasm-rifted, forest-clothed mountain. With every ascent gained, the flame appeared to hoist a signal of triumph over the dumb, dark, illimitable forest which surrounded them. Finally, when like a crafty foe it had climbed to the highest peak, the fire, there discovering upon a plateau a mass of brushwood and dry herbage, burst out in one far-seen, wide-flaming beacon, at once a Pharos and a Wonder-sign to the dwellers at a lower elevation.
The bush fire had been fought and conquered. It only remained for Dick and a few to go back on the following day and make sure that the frontier was safe; that no smouldering logs were ready to light up the land again as soon as the breeze should have fanned them sufficiently. The main body of the fire had gone up the mountain range, where no harm could be done; where, as Dick said, as soon as the first rain came, the grass would be all up again, and make nice, sweet picking for the stock in winter.
The Benmohr people had not been quite so lucky; the wind setting in that direction, the flames had come roaring up to the very homestead, burning valuable pasture and nearly consuming the establishment. As it was, the garden gate caught fire. The farm and station buildings were only preserved by the desperate efforts of the whole force of the place, led on by Argyll and Hamilton, who worked like the leaders of a forlorn hope. After the fight was over and the place saved, Charlie Hamilton, utterly exhausted with the heat and exertion, dropped down in a faint, and had to be carried in and laid on a bed, to the consternation of Mrs. Teviot, who thought he was dead.
It was now the last week of March, and all things looked as bad as they could be. Not a drop of rain worth mentioning had fallen since the spring. The small rivers which ran into Lake William had ceased to flow, and were reduced each to its own chain of ponds. That great sheet of water was daily receding from its shores, shallowing visibly, and leaving islands of mud in different parts of its surface, unpleasantly suggestive of total evaporation. Strange wild-fowl, hitherto unknown in the locality—notably the ibis, the pelican, and the spoonbill—had appeared in great flocks, disputing possession with the former inhabitants. The flats bordering upon the lake, once so luxuriantly covered with herbage, were bare and dusty as a highroad. The constant marching in and out of the cattle to water had caused them to be fed down to the last stalk. Apparently there was no chance of their renewal. The herd, though still healthy and vigorous, was beginning to lose condition; if this were the case now, what tale would the winter have to tell? The yield of milk had so fallen off that merely sufficient was taken for the use of the house. The ground was so hard that it was impossible to plough for the wheat crop, even if there had been likelihood of the plant growing after the seed was sown.
Andrew was clearly of the opinion that Australia much resembled Judea, and that for some good reason the Lord had seen fit to pour down His wrath upon the land, which was now stricken with various plagues and grievous trials.
‘I’m no sayin’,’ he said, ‘that the sin o’ the people has been a’thegither unpardonable and forbye ordinair’. There’s nae doot a wheen swearin’ and drinkin’ amang thae puir ignorant stock-riders and splitter bodies. Still, they’re for the maist pairt a hard delvin’, ceevil people, that canna be said to eat the bread o’ idleness, and that’s no wilfu’ in disobeyin’ the Word, siccan sma’ hearin’ as they hae o’t. I’m lyin’ in deep thocht on my bed nicht after nicht, wearyin’ to find ae comfortin’ gleam o’ licht in this darkness o’ Egypt.’
‘It’s a bad look-out, Andrew,’ said Guy, to whom Andrew was confiding his feelings, as he often did to the lad when he was troubled about the well-doing of the community. ‘And it will be worse if the cattle die after next winter. Whatever shall we do? We shall never get such a lot of nice, well-bred ones together again. What used the Jews to do in a season like this, I wonder, for they got it pretty bad sometimes, you know, when Jacob sent all his sons into Egypt?’